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Art blooms in Mexico's boomtown; while remaining one of Latin America's most stable financial centers, Monterrey is currently in the process of establishing a lively cultural identity befitting its vibrant economy
Art in America, March, 2005 by David Ebony
A visitor's perception of Monterrey as Mexico's boomtown begins at the Monterrey International Airport, where an extensive expansion and renovation project is currently under way to accommodate the city's growing numbers of business travelers, students and tourists. Foreign arrivals last summer were obliged to duck under scaffolding and sidestep earsplitting riveters and sandblasters in order to reach a makeshift passport control desk. One can see signs of Monterrey's economic vitality everywhere. The airport express bus heading toward the old city center passes numerous--and often enormous--recently built industrial parks lining both sides of the highway for much of the 15-mile stretch.
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The capital of the northern state of Nuevo Leon, which borders Texas, Monterrey has weathered Mexico's stormy political and financial climate in recent decades and remains one of Latin America's biggest economic success stories. Last year, Fortune magazine named Monterrey the best city in Latin America in which to conduct business. A lower crime rate and a higher education level compared with other sizable Mexican locales make the city a favorite outsourcing destination for U.S., European and Asian corporations seeking relatively cheap, efficient labor. In the past few years, new biotechnology and e-commerce firms have joined the electronics, building materials, auto parts and beer manufacturers that are at the core of Monterrey's economy. The city is also home to the Technical Institute of Superior Studies (ITESM), one of the nation's most prestigious universities, as well as the headquarters of Banorte, the only Mexican bank controlled by Mexicans.
Once little more than a dusty trading post nestled in a pretty valley surrounded by the Sierra Madre mountains and several extinct volcanoes, Monterrey and its environs are now home to more than 3.5 million people. Lacking the pre-Columbian monuments or early colonial landmarks of other important Mexican cities, Monterrey has struggled in recent years to establish a cultural identity that could match its extraordinary economic prosperity. The city's downtown area reflects the growing pains. In a dissonant mix of old and new architecture, glass and steel high-rise office and apartment buildings loom above historic 17th-and 18th-century terra-cotta-roofed stone structures on the quaint cobblestone streets radiating from one side of the Grand Plaza, a large gassy mall located in the heart of the city. Scattered throughout the midtown area, funky late 19th- and early- and mid-20th-century structures seem to anxiously await either a wrecking ball or a restorer.
Until fairly recently, the principal Mexican beneficiaries of the city's economic growth--multimillionaires who own second and third homes in Mexico City and abroad--participated little in Monterrey's cultural life, particularly with regard to art, whether in the form of' maseum-going, art collecting or exhibition sponsorship. For these activities, they preferred Mexico City, New York, Los Angeles, London or Paris. The opening of Monterrey's Museo de Arte Contemporaneo (MARCO) in 1901, however, sparked a change. Showing a wide range of first-rate exhibitions featuring important Mexican and international figures, the venue put Monterrey on the contemporary art map and helped spawn the city's modest but lively gallery scene and a growing community of emerging artists. Monterrey's young artists are receiving an increasing amount of attention both at home and abroad. Mexico City-based Francis Alys, for instance, recently selected the Monterrey collective Tercerunquinto as the inaugural recipient of the 2004 blueOrange award for the most promising new artists in Mexico [see "Artworld," Nov. '04].
MARCO
A sprawling modernist structure located at one end of the Grand Plaza, MARCO was designed by Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta. The building was controversial at first, as some critics insisted that the money would have been better spent on bolstering the scant art education programs in Nuevo Leon's schools [see A.i.A., Oct. '91]. But MARCO's $11-million price tag now seems a modest sum compared with the cost of new museum buildings today.
Surpassing even the most optimistic long-term forecasts, MARCO eventually established itself as a popular, stable and respected institution. There is talk of an addition to house its small but expanding permanent collection. Some of its holdings formerly belonged to the now-shuttered Museo de Monterrey [see A.i.A., May '94]. For now, though, the museum, guided by director Nina Zambrano, continues its pro gram of temporary shows of works by cutting-edge and emerging artists as well as more established figures. In recent years, the museum has worked in tandem with foreign institutions to bring international exhibitions to Monterrey. An exemplary trio of recent traveling shows resulted from the museum's successful collaboration with several U.S. art institutions.
Last summer, the large ground-floor galleries, a series of airy rooms surrounding a spectacular Legorreta-designed indoor fountain, were divided between a survey of 28 major paintings from the past two decades by the Nicaraguan artist Armando Morales and an exhibition of 19 recent large-scale sculptures and installations by Abraham Cruzvillegas, a young artist from Mexico City. The slightly smaller second-level galleries contained "Follies," a mid-career survey of sculptures and installations by the Brazilian-born, New York-based artist Valeska Soares.
